A video made to be seen by five people. Five very special viewers. The rock band, Foo Fighters.

Rockin’ 1000 gathered one thousand musicians to record a video of the Foo Fighters song, “Learning to Fly” to capture the attention of the band and request a tour stop in their home town of Cesena, Italy. This video garnered over 18 million views on YouTube in one week’s time. That’s 36,000% times the number of intended viewers. If only the five intended viewers watched the video, would it have resulted in the same answer from the music group? Probably not.

Today’s video marketing efforts by brands, YouTube sensations or individuals capture attention when they go viral. But how do you create a viral video? There have been many articles written about the subject of viral video. We are not addressing the desires or discussion of “Making a Viral Campaign”. The idea that you can plan, strategize, design and wish for viral is inherent, but something going viral is out of the hands of the creator once it is launched.

When someone walks into your marketing meeting and says, “let’s make a viral video” what is your reaction? You are probably thinking, we can produce a video, but I can’t guarantee it will be viral.

Rockin’ 1000 coordinators didn’t seem to worry about the viral effect. They focused on the impact of 1000 musicians seeking an appearance from their favorite band. By doing so, they created a movement that was 11 months in the making and less than a week in getting their desired result. Yes, the Foo Fighters’Dave Grohl has responded via Twitter that the band will be ‘seeing you soon.’ The viral effect drove the attention of the band to accept the invitation.

How can you gather a similar online audience? How can you go beyond the planning and design of the idea to make an impact?

VizSense is a new breed of online video analytics tracking the results of online video and the viral trajectory once a video is posted on YouTube. Already tracking over 300 videos, measuring various attributes (beyond likes, views and comments) and constructing a visualization of the viral growth VizSense helps identify the patterns, resonance and the hidden ecosystem of the video sharing. The visualization and detailed data points enable identification of key influencers and the point at which a video becomes viral.

In the case of the Rockin’ 1000 “Learning to Fly” video, VizSense was able to identify out of the 18 million and growing number of viewers that over 34% of the tracked network reach of the video was developed by two key Twitter users. Rockin’ 1000 designed a strong social campaign for the crowdfunding, gathering musicians, production of the video and initial sharing of the idea that became a movement. Fabio Zaffagnini, creator and Eleonora Giunchi from Rockin’ 1000 social media did a great job of producing and launching the video, but @Fearncotton and @picomonaco drove the largest Twitter share numbers (combined 7,297,739 network reach) and helped create the viral effect of the video.

So what’s the point? If you want to create a viral video you need to fly to Italy and crowdfund thousands of dollars to film your project. No.

You can create a video for five and share it for millions to view, but success comes from the key influencers that join the movement and share the video with their network who then share it with their network and so-on. VizSense helps easily identify key influencers so you can engage and grow your video’s trajectory and accomplish what you set out to design and create – a viral video. It’s known a viral marketing campaign requires both excellent planning and sheer luck.With VizSense, we go beyond the design and luck to identify the most powerful contributors to create viral movement.

To learn more about how VizSense helps marketers and content creators find and harness the power of fans and credible voices to help improve revenue and profit, visit us here.